Become a User Flow mapping master with these 10 simple tips
Hope that title caught your attention. Now come young Padawan. Patience you must have. Skills we will learn.
As Product Managers, being the central touchpoint between users, your dev team, and the business means we have to navigate the complex interplay between the users’ needs, the available tech stack, our internal stakeholder business needs, and, last but not least, the UI/UX design. Any tool that can aid in bringing order to the chaos and introduce some structure and simplicity into the process can be vital.
At Product People, one of our favorite tools is the User Flow. In this article, we will introduce you to user flows, show how you can create them, and share some tips and best practices that will help you become a user flow mapping master.
But first things first, what is a user flow?
User flows are paths that users take within a product to complete specific tasks or achieve particular goals. They are a visual representation that highlights the route a user takes or should take to complete a task.
Creating such flows is particularly useful from a UX perspective as this will allow you to see, at a glance, what paths the users need to take inside your product to achieve certain objectives and help you detect ways in which you can improve this experience for your users.
User flows can be created both to map out existing paths in a product or to create new ones and can be done with pen and paper or digitally using software such as Miro or Figjam. For the example used in this article, I will be using Miro to map out the flows.
Make sure to read until the very end to get some cool tips that you can implement in Miro to take your user flow mapping to the next level!
Where do we begin you ask? User Flow mapping steps I show
The first thing you’ll want to do is to get acquainted with the product & process(es) for which you are going to create the user flows.
The best way to learn is through practice, so let’s look at a typical e-commerce checkout process that most of us have experienced a dozen times and see how we’d create a user flow for it.
Tip #1: Don’t forget the legend!
Start by specifying what the shapes mean, making it easy to understand for someone looking at the flow for the first time.
For most basic flows we’ll have two “actors” interacting with one another: the user and the system that responds to the user’s actions. In more complex flows there might be several different actors (E.g. a product that has different user roles/permissions).
- Rectangles: indicate an action
- Diamonds: indicate a decision
- Circles/ovals: indicate starting and ending points
- Arrows: user navigation
Tip #2: Try to keep your flows simple
Have a clear entry point. It’s much easier and faster to focus on the main flow first from beginning to end. You can then make the necessary branching and connections between secondary flows after you map out the main flow.
Tip #3: Use a clear nomenclature for your actions and decisions
Avoid lengthy labels and unnecessary information.
Tip #4: Stick to one direction when drawing the flow diagram
User flows can get quite big, so before jumping straight into building one, try to get a general grasp of the flow and how it might branch out. This will help you plan out your space and avoid having to do the work of moving everything around to make space for new elements later on.
Tip #5: Have a clear end goal for each flow
Limit the flows to one primary goal/task and avoid multiple scenarios. This will help you while mapping to avoid any ambiguity.
Tip #6: Use colors with a purpose
Colors can be a great visual aid in our flows when we want to distinguish between users or processes, but avoid going overboard. Using colors arbitrarily can easily confuse the reader.
Tip #7: Be visually consistent
Maintain a standard font, sizes, colors, etc. throughout the whole flow to keep a coherent visual structure. The user flows we build should make our lives easier; don’t overcomplicate them with too many different colors and shapes.
Tip #8: Use visual aids!
Since most of the flows that we create as Product Managers are for existing products, it really helps to attach screens of the UI for which we create the user flows, be it an app, website, or platform.
User flows can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be. For the sake of the tutorial, we kept the sample e-commerce flow on a higher level, but depending on the end goal of the flow, you might want to go as detailed as mapping down all of the system’s responses.
How does the system respond when a user inputs an incorrect email address or password?
What if the user inputs an invalid discount code?
This will of course increase the size and complexity of the flow, so what can you do to still maintain a clear visual structure that can help you navigate quicker through the flows?
Tip #9: Use frames to group flows
Throughout this example, we’ve been using Miro to build out the checkout user flow. One useful feature that we use to quickly separate and identify different parts of a flow is the frame feature. We place frames around parts of the flow that we want to group and give them names that are easily identifiable so that we know where to look when we need to find a particular section in the user journey for which we’ve mapped out the flows.
Bonus tip #10: Use rocketships to connect flows! 🚀
Sometimes, flows can get a bit messy and hard to follow when there are a lot of connections between different parts of the mapping and the connection lines start overlapping and/or intersecting with each other. Luckily, Miro has a pretty cool feature that allows you to create links between different components on the board which, when clicked on, take you in the blink of an eye to the element that they’re linked to. This can save you the time and hassle of scrolling and searching as you can also add these rocketship ‘shortcuts’ to your legend and allow viewers to quickly navigate between the different parts of the flows.
- Right-click on the rocketship for which you want to create the link and select “Link to”
- Select the object on the board for which you want to create the link
- Done! Now you’ll be able to click on the arrows in the top right corner of the rocketships and be taken to the part of the flow that interests you
Congratulations! You now know how to create your own user flows. You might not get it as perfect as you wish on your first try but remember… Practice makes perfect! And don’t forget to have fun with it, flows are a great way to learn more about the product and put yourself directly in the shoes of your users.
“Your path you must decide.” — Yoda
